Ask
almost any long-time collector to name his or
her favorite coin designs, and the answer is
likely to be the following coins, not
necessarily in the order presented: Saint-Gaudens
gold $20, Walking Liberty half dollar, Buffalo
nickel, and Standing Liberty quarter. And of
those four designs, the first three have been
used on modern reproductions, proving once again
that imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery.

The odd coin in this case is the one that some
would consider the most attractive of the lot:
the Standing Liberty quarter. As David Bowers
puts it in Grading Coins by Photographs, “the
Standing Liberty quarter was widely acclaimed
from its first appearance.” Such acclaim also
can be found in more modern numismatists, such
as J. H. Cline, who wrote the following in
Standing Liberty Quarters (4th edition): “Like
no other coin or series, I loved the Standing
Liberty quarter at first sight and that love
still burns white hot!”

Now there may be a bit of hyperbole in that
remark, but it’s probably not far off the mark.
I, too, love the Standing Liberty quarter,
although I wouldn’t say it’s with a “white hot”
love.

The Standing Liberty quarter was part of the
design renaissance that exchanged three great
designs for the monotony of the Barber-designed
dimes, quarters, and half dollars. Of course,
the three Barber series have their fans, of
which I am one, but most collectors don’t
attribute to the Barber coins the phrase “design
excellence,” which could easily be applied to
their replacements.

Both the Mercury dime and the Walking Liberty
half dollar were the work of Adolph Weinman,
whereas Hermon A. MacNeil designed the Standing
Liberty quarter. MacNeil was one of three
sculptors (MacNeil, Weinman, and someone named
Polasek) selected out of a larger group of 50 to
submit potential designs for the dime, quarter,
and half dollar. MacNeil’s obverse design, which
at one point featured a pair of dolphins at
Liberty’s feet, was chosen.

As for MacNeil’s reverse design, according to
Cline, he “tried to capture the majesty of the
American Bald Eagle in its glorious flight.
However, many thought he failed; many claimed it
had the wings of an eagle and the body of a dove
and the beak of a hawk. Others view this Eagle
in flight as a better proportioned [eagle] than
[on] any other United States coin.”

The model for Liberty was long believed to have
been Miss Doris Doscher, later Doris Doscher
Baum following her marriage to Dr. William Baum.
Doscher posed for other sculptors in addition to
MacNeil and starred in several silent films
under the name Doris Doree. Having overcome
polio as a child, Doscher “was one of the first
women to promote natural medicine and exercise
for good health.”

Another possible model for Liberty put in her
claim in 1972. At that time, Mrs. Irene
MacDowell told “her family and closest friends
…that she did indeed model for the Standing
Liberty quarter. It was her beautiful statuesque
figure that inspired Hermon MacNeil to design a
coin that expressed the profound beauty of
Liberty in art.…” According to Walter Breen’s
Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial
Coins, “Mrs. MacDowell’s name had remained a
secret because her husband (one of MacNeil’s
tennis partners) disapproved. Photographic
evidence indicates a composite portrait, but
beyond doubt Irene MacDowell was the principal
model.”

Beyond the question of the model for the
obverse, there’s also a controversy over the
reason for the early design change that covered
Liberty’s bare right breast with chain mail.
According to both Breen and Cline, the “cover
up” occurred because of contemporary prudery. Of
course, this was not the official reason for the
change. Cline writes:

“When the senators’ wives and representatives’
wives objected to the bare-breasted Miss Liberty
on the quarter, the requests to change the
design were worded in every conceivable way,
i.e.: it would not stack properly. It was
artistically incorrect. The design had lots of
nooks and crevices and would catch a lot of
germs. The mint could not strike up the design
on the obverse as mechanical requirements were
incorrect. Even the eagle’s feet were wrong!
Anything and everything except a written request
to cover Miss Liberty’s exposed breasts.”

Although the idea that prudery resulted in the
breast covering is appealing and easy to accept,
the truth may be more prosaic: The change was
made to bring the design closer to that desired
by MacNeil. In Robert R. Van Ryzin’s Twisted
Tails, the author writes, “If there was
significant public protest to the nudity on the
Variety 1 design, it was well hidden.” In other
words, Van Ryzin could find no contemporary
evidence that the design change occurred because
of a desire for modesty.

Collecting Standing Liberty Quarters
Collecting Standing Liberty quarters is really a
story in three parts, as there are three
different types. First, there is the
bare-breasted design, with no stars beneath the
eagle on the reverse. This was minted at the end
of 1916 and the first part of 1917 and consists
of four different coins: 1916 and 1917 P, D, and
S.

Of these four coins, the 1917-dated pieces are
relatively plentiful and reasonably valued,
whereas the 1916 is the key to the series. With
a mintage of just 52,000 pieces, the 1916 is
both scarce and always in demand, both of which
mean that the value is great. According to the
November 2009 edition of Numismatic News “Coin
Market,” the date starts at $6,350 in Very
Good-8, which is likely not to have a full date,
jumps to $9,500 in Fine-12, is worth $13,000 in
Very Fine-20, $14,500 in Extremely Fine-40,
$16,500 in About Uncirculated-50, $18,500 in
Mint State-60, $23,000 in MS-63, $30,000 in
MS-65, and $37,500 in MS-65 FH (full head).

Although $37,500 sounds like a lot to pay for a
1916 with a good strike, there is another date
in the series that lists for more than this in
MS-65 FH. This is the date with the
second-lowest mintage in the series, the 1927-S.
With a mintage of just 396,000 pieces, which is
less than either of the keys in the Washington
quarter series, values of the 1927-S start at a
low $48 in VG-8 and rise by leaps and bounds to
$165,000 in MS-65 FH. In other words, the 1927-S
is one of those “condition rarities” (common in
low grade, decidedly uncommon in high grades)
that you often read about.

A design feature that reduced the supply of
early Standing Liberty quarters is that the date
was raised above the rim, which means that it
quickly wore away in circulation. Couple this
with the fact that many of the early dates were
so poorly struck that they didn’t have full
dates to begin with, and you have a recipe for
greater than expected scarcity. The problem of
the raised date was not corrected until 1925.

In the latter part of 1917, Liberty’s breast was
covered with chain mail, as indicated above, and
the eagle was raised, with three stars inserted
beneath it. This is the second design type, and
it was minted from 1917 through 1924.

Beginning in 1925, the date was finally recessed
to create the third design type. Most grading
guides lump together the recessed-date pieces
with the second design type, which is a mistake
because Variety 2 coins are almost certain to
have less of the date visible for a given grade
than Variety 3 quarters.

In addition to the 1916, which is the “big key”
to the circulated set, there are a couple of
semi-keys: the 1921 and the 1923-S. It’s
significant that both of these dates fall into
the Variety 2 classification, as their mintages
were not exceedingly low. In fact, there are
several quarters with recessed dates that had
either similar or lower mintages.

The mintage of the 1921 was 1.9 million pieces.
It’s worth $220 in VG-8, jumps to $450 in F-12,
is $625 in VF-20, $750 in EF-40, $1,100 in
AU-50, $1,500 in MS-60, $2,150 in MS-63, $3,850
in MS-65, and $5,500 in MS-65 FH (full head).
Relatively speaking, $5,500 is not all that high
for a specimen with a full strike, as it is
considerably less than some of the other, more
common, dates.

For example, the 1920-S lists for $24,000 with a
full head, despite having a mintage more than
three times as great as the 1921. Then there’s
the 1926-S, with a mintage of 2.7 million
pieces. It’s worth $28,000 in MS-65 FH.

The other semi-key to the circulated collection
is the 1923-S, which had a mintage of 1,360,000
pieces. This date starts at $425 in VG-8 and
rises rather gradually to a top value of $6,500
in MS-65 FH. Although this value is $1,000
greater than the corresponding value for the
1921, Cline writes, “Since the inception of the
major grading services in 1986, they have proven
that the 1921 is a bit scarcer than the 1923-S
particularly in MS65 FH.…”

Cline notes that he has “seen this coin with an
added mintmark more than all other dates
combined.” Although he describes how you can
tell the difference between the 1923-S and a
1923 with an added mintmark, I would urge you to
buy only pieces certified by one of the leading
certification services.

Although Standing Liberty quarters were still
often seen in circulation when I started
collecting coins in the mid-1950s, the only
pre-1925 piece that I can remember finding was a
1918 in F-VF. I no longer have the coin, but if
I did, it would be worth about $30 in this
grade.

Looking at prices in “Coin Market,” I see that
in addition to the 1921 and the 1923-S, a couple
of the early dates have crossed the $100 mark in
VG-8, the 1919-D and -S, which are worth $110
and $105, respectively. It’s probably no
accident that these two dates are also pricy in
MS-65 FH. In that grade, the 1919-D lists for
$28,500 and the 1919-S for $30,000. About the
1919-D, Cline writes, “This date is one of the
most underrated dates and mintmarks in the whole
series in MS65/67, Full Head. It is truly rarer
than the 1916.” For the 1919-S, he notes, “Full
Heads of this date are very rare and would be
closely paralleled with the value of the 1916,
and very difficult to locate.”

With the exception of the 1927-S in higher
grades, none of the dates after 1924 are all
that expensive, particularly in circulated
grades. In fact, most of them list for less than
$10 in grades less than VF.

One of the few exceptions to this is the 1927-D,
which has a published mintage of just 976,000
pieces. This mintage is the third lowest in the
series, behind only the 1916 and the 1927-S. As
you would expect given its low mintage, the
1927-D is worth $19 in VG-8 and $32 in F-12,
both values well above $10. Surprisingly, in
MS-65 it’s only worth $600.

According to Breen, the reason for the low value
for this date in MS-65 and also for the 1926-D
in the same grade ($545) is that bags of these
dates were recovered from banks in the early
1930s. Thus, both are relatively plentiful in
MS-65, but this doesn’t mean that they are
similarly common with Full Heads. In fact, Cline
writes about the 1926-D, “it almost never comes
with a Full Head.” “Coin Market” values it at
$22,500 in MS-65 FH.

Based on his experience, Cline has difficulty
accepting the listed mintage of the 1927-D. He
writes, “1927-D is one of those dates upon which
your author would challenge the reported mintage
figures.… This date is found at least ten to 25
times more often than its sister coin, the
1927-S, yet the reported mintage figures are not
even three times as high.…”

One of the best coins my father and I found in
circulation (he retrieved it from the “coffee
change” at his office) was a 1927-D. I always
graded it EF until I submitted it to a
certification service and it came back with an
AU-58 grade. The current AU-50 value is $210,
and it’s worth $250 in MS-60. Not a bad coin for
25 cents. I would also have to add that it holds
a lot of sentimental value for me, as it’s one
of the few coins I still own from my collecting
days with my father, who’s been deceased for
many years.

As you may have noticed, I haven’t talked about
the most valuable Standing Liberty quarters of
all in MS-65 and MS-65 FH and the second most
valuable date in all other grades. It’s the
series overdate, 1918-S, 8 over 7, or 1918/17-S,
as it’s sometimes written. Current values for
the overdate start at $2,250 in VG-8 and end at
$110,000 in MS-65 and a whopping $320,000 in
MS-65 FH.

As with most varieties, the mintage of the
1918/17-S is unknown, and one reason for the
date’s scarcity in higher grades is that it
wasn’t discovered until many years after it was
produced. According to Cline, “The first
appearance of the overdate at public auction was
the Barney Bluestone sale on December 4, 1937,
as Lot #741. It sold for the unheard of figure
of $26.25. The coin was brilliant Uncirculated.”

Cline also writes, “Although some do not
consider the overdate a part of the set, your
author considers that any date struck by the
mint, overdate or not, is needed to complete the
set. After all, the coin was struck at the mint
and was not an error. It was planned.” Given the
value of this coin in any grade, I suspect that
most people who are trying to put together a set
of Standing Liberty quarters treat the overdate
as optional to the completion of their set.

It’s amazing how few varieties there are in the
Standing Liberty quarter series. “Coin Market”
lists only the overdate and large and small
mintmarks on the 1928-S. In Cherrypickers’
Guide, Fivaz and Stanton concur with this
limited number of varieties, writing, “For some
unknown reason, there are very few varieties in
the Standing Liberty quarter series.” They
describe only five varieties, one of which is
the overdate. Surprisingly, they fail to list
the two different size mintmarks on the 1928-S.

Fivaz and Stanton do, however, list two 1928-S
varieties: an inverted mintmark and a repunched
mintmark. The other two varieties described are
a 1929-S with a clashed die on the obverse and a
1930-S that probably has a repunched mintmark.

Cline pictures several different dates with
interesting die breaks. He does not list the
die-break variety that I found, however, and now
I wish that I had kept it and submitted it for
inclusion in future editions of his book. It was
a die break at the top of the obverse on a
1927-D that made it appear that Liberty had an
arrow through her head. In fact, I referred it
to as my Steve Martin variety, because the
famous comedian sometimes appeared early in his
television career wearing a hat made to look
like an arrow was going through his head.

In terms of collectibility, the Standing Liberty
quarter series has a lot going for it. The coin
has a great design; the series is relatively
short, with only 37 different date/mintmark
combinations; and most of the dates are
reasonably priced in circulated grades, if you
can find them.

There are, however, some drawbacks to the
series. One of the biggest problems is that the
series begins with a major stopper, the 1916. In
any decent grade, the coin will cost you several
thousand dollars. Also, the 1921 and 1923-S are
pricy in all grades, if you can find them. I’ve
looked for a nice, full-date 1923-S off and on
for years, with no success.

Still, if you have a deep pocketbook for coin
purchases, this is a great series to tackle.